1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to presenting information and messages to a group of individuals in a location or multiple locations. More particularly, the present invention relates to compiling data from users in a group to provide information to the group either in a local area or over a network.
2. Description of Related Art
Every day, corporate, government, private and other entities lose millions of dollars due to unproductive meetings. Meetings tend to get off track and explore side issues without focusing on the original agenda. Questions or explanations regarding a topic may lead to further discussion on topics not related to the meeting. Participants, whether in person or over a network, may be discouraged from interrupting or interjecting to move the meeting back on topic due to reasons such as shyness, confusion or peer pressure.
Further, moderators of meetings may find themselves losing control of a meeting. Strong personalities within the audience may take over and control the meeting which reduces productivity by not achieving the objectives of the meeting. Moderators also may be uncertain if participants are edging towards frustration or boredom from an unproductive meeting.
Systems may gather data from a group of people to provide some sort of status indication. The systems may include monitors or body attachments that gather data or information at the same time from multiple data sources. The monitors may include radio frequency (RF) tags and readers that transmit a signal to a base station with the data of interest. For example, if one desires to know the body temperatures for a group over a period of time, then the people in the group may wear a bracelet that transmits this information on a periodic basis. The monitoring system, however, is cost prohibitive and may not be applicable to meetings or groups, especially those located over long distances. The transmitted signal from the bracelet may become too weak to be of value or reach a base station.